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Chaos Patch (#11)

ADDED: Anyone applying for retro-entryist special ops from our side has first to pass one simple test. Re-phrase the following statement briefly in your own words, without sacrificing any of its intellectual rigor:

96 Responses to this entry

peppermint Says:

Will not happen.

* no power means no entryists (yet)

* no voting means no way for entryists to support each other. They must worm their way in as students and then wait for the previous generation to die. The initial attacks on on the universities took much longer than the subsequent autogolpes in the ’60s.

* no one will ever shut up NRx leaders. No one will ever convince Jim to say anything other than what he thinks, even if Bryce LaLiberte could be convinced by threats to his family.

That’s child’s play. I’d be a great Progressive Entryist. I have deep, extensive training in paying lip service.

“We all know that the truth is that human sexuality – what people desire, what turns them on, who they’re sexually attracted to – is much, much more complicated and contextual than the simple binary of male vs. female, and that these broad spectrums of sexual personality profiles cannot line up perfectly with mere XX vs XY genotypes or genitalia phenotypes. Yes, that may work well enough as a first approximation for about 90% of the center of the various human population group bell-curves. But that’s about as far as it goes, and any ‘gender binary’ theory which claims more is simply incorrect.

“This is a matter of simple observation, and also corroborated by academic study. It’s not enough to say that gender-binary is what the vast majority of people instinctively or intuitively think and prefer, and that they have strong, built-in disgust reactions when contemplating non-normative sexuality and behavior. That’s true, but they go a step beyond that and deny the evidence of their eyes and experiences. Everybody knows there are plenty of gays and lesbians these days, and that facultative homosexuality is the norm in certain parts of the world and has been since ancient times. One can see the variety of other dispositions in every attempt at survey or polling when people feel unafraid to be honest, and there is market data available in the form of the demand for the mysterious and staggering multiplicity of tastes to which the pornography industry caters.”

“There is a lot of debate and uncertainty as to why this is so, but that’s not relevant. The point is that it is an obvious fact, and any social narrative or propagated ideology which denies this fact and insists that people are more binary than they are is just a social construct. And while individual choice and cultural influences clearly play a role, that role is hardly exclusive of various biological and immutable origins of these non-normative sexual predilections, something that is also a fairly obvious thing to observe. The imposition of normative judgments on immutable characteristics is also, almost by definition, a social construct.”

“And it is these social constructs that demand as much explanation as the origins of the deviant sexual dispositions themselves. There is some evidence that social views of gender have varied over time, and between contemporaneous cultures, and it stands to reason that not all of these ideas fulfilled a potentially justifying pro-social function everywhere, all the time, but social constructs tend to exist for a reason. And usually that reason is for the benefit of the elite groups that are able to craft and propagate the constructs. The benefit to anyone else is incidental (unless the benefit is calculated to be normative in order to gain majority approval and legitimacy for the elites), and the expense is to anyone who doesn’t ‘fit the mold’ and is too powerless to fight the system or evade its persecutions.”

“But the social-construct elite today is definitively in favor of tolerance and celebration of the diversity of gender-indentity. They may have their own agenda, of course, in propagating this new narrative, or they may just be genuinely trying to correct an obsolete, anachronistic and inherited injustice, as has usually been the case over the past few centuries. And they are having some success, nevertheless, the gender-binary construct is a stubborn one to eradicate.”

“And so the question becomes, how did we get the particular social constructs we have here, today? Who created them, who maintained and propagated them, and why?”

“And the answer is fairly simple. We have already said that it must have been the old elites, and it must have benefited them. Who were those elites and what were their interests? The elites were the rich, white, mostly Christian men who were at the commanding heights of the most powerful European societies during the era of global expansion, colonization, and dominance. What were their interests? Well, the same as always – money, power, status, fame, sex, and children to perpetuate their system and legacy. But the ultimate meta-interest is to protect the systems that give one a special privilege and a maximized chance of obtaining one’s goals, even if this requires the exploitation and oppression of everyone else outside this special class. Indeed, it requires it – because the point of any monopolist – and privilege is like a monopoly which extracts undue profits – is to eliminate the threat fair competition by establishing ‘barriers to entry’ and enforcing them by any means necessary”

“And that is precisely what pre-20th century world was about. The whites, wanting to keep all money and power in the hands of the whites and justify social structures that kept out the non-whites, created a white supremacy construct. Colonialism, Mercantilism, and Slavery, were all about arrogating the maximum amount of the profit surplus to the capitalist ruling class, which required paying as little as possible for labor and natural resources, much less than what they would have to pay under voluntary transactions in a free market. And you can’t pay less than ‘free’, which is what you pay when you steal it – by conquest or enslavement. The entire wealth of the aristocracies and oligarchies of this time period was, as during feudal times, essentially, a gigantic rolling theft from 90% (at least) of the rest of the population.”

“The explanatory narratives that attempted to morally justify all this robbery – to pretend that it was something other, or more noble, or mandatory, or less harsh and brutal than it really was – is what we mean when we talk about the ‘system’s convenient logic’ – that is, the web of sophistry used to salve the consciences of the exploiting oppressors, and to indoctrinate the masses with a false consciousness that will help to numb their sense of their own experiences of social injustice and to guarantee their acquiescence in the status quo.”

“And the religion of Christianity was simply the core and indispensable part of this entire structure of propaganda upon which the ruling class completely relied. Within the elite class itself, there had always been plenty of skeptics and freethinkers, and also a certain amount of special tolerance for sexual license and non-normative experimentation within their own class. But it was thought that anything but the most rigid and normative rules of sexual conduct would rapidly undermine the harmony and stability of the common orders, and to furthermore reduce procreation which was always an urgent requirement for various reasons. There was a high mortality rate for one. But babies were needed as new cheap labor, a reserve army of the unemployed, armies to defend against large, powerful rivals and also to fight wars of conquest, and to populate the vast new lands.”

“And it was out of these economic, military, and patronizing concerns, and out of a recognition that their legitimacy and security depended on the clergy, that the elite stood steadfastly behind the Church in its propagation of nuclear monogamy and heterosexual normativity. Many on both sides of this ruling team may have genuinely believed in the righteousness of these views, but it must be noticed that these moral ideas were also extremely convenient and beneficial for their power-maintenance and economic-surplus-extraction strategy.”

“That is also the ‘logic’ of the system – the benefits derived from pushing a particular ideology. And through cognitive dissonance and a bit of self-delusion, people will tend to genuinely believe in the transcendental righteousness of what is convenient to their interests, and ignore or rationalize or justify all the human misery they leave in their wake. Thankfully, the arc of history of long, but it bends towards progress and morality and social-justice, and we are finally, at last, leaving all that behind us.”

E-Z: the white Christian heteropatriarchy needed to perpetuate an unfree caste of laborers, and the best way to do that is to heavily reinforce male-female reproductive intercourse as the total norm of human sexual relations.

I’m not at all sure that I completely get TDT either, but it looks to me like it’s good for dealing with oracles, gods, and mind-readers – anything that can perfectly predict your actions. Is dealing with gods, oracles, and mind-readers really an urgent problem crying out for a solution? In the world of clever little decision theory puzzles, it sure is. TDT is like the gelatinous cube, a D&D monster exquisitely adapted to its graph-paper environment.

I agree that the main problem appears to be obsession with unrealistic puzzles. Especially as I don’t even need TDT to deal with those.

For oracles to work, determinism must be true (It’s not.) – there has to be a fact of the matter about what I’ll do.* If there is, rather than deciding it, I’m discovering it. (Huh. That makes it clear. If I think it can be known in advance what I’ll do, I discover that I one-box. If I think otherwise, I discover that I two-box.) Since I can see the oracle at work, I believe in determinism.

*There is no fact of the matter about whether the electron will converge on spin-up or spin-down until after it does so. There’s only a probability distribution.

But, surely, I’ve misunderstood something? I mean, I only read about five pages of the TDT paper.

Whether Scott Alexander is particular is a sophist isn’t important. I’m capable of evaluating his claims despite ink in the water, I’m double-sure admin here will continue to expose me to all the interesting ones regardless of my judgment.

However, I would like to be able to peg a sophist more quickly and accurately in the future. Conversely, to find bugs in my reasoning algorithms. In either case, the veracity of Alexander’s sophistry is highly material.

Let the trial commence. Scott Alexander is charged with an Incurable case of Sophistry in the First Degree.

The cutting edge of proglodyte insanity (mostly known as “SJW” there, Social Justice Warrior) brought to you by the finest moderate-progressive minds of the internet wringing their hands about how this has Gone Too Far.

Well gents, this night has been a revelation to me.
For some reason even after the last serious talk on this topic I felt as if Anissimov, even though disagreeable on a lot of topics, still maintained a fragile connection with Moldbug and his fundamental ideas. Apparently I was being very naive.

In light of recent events I would like to somewhat echo Vladimir from May 2013. Gents, we were warned. Internet movement-building and ideological posturing are dangerous stuff. Sooner or later dumb shit is very likely to happen and it did. When you make communities on the internet you always get senseless drama sooner or later. (think of what happened with the Manosphere recently)
This was of course predicted by our host here a long time ago, but I was hoping for a more constructive argument with the “opposition” than the pathethic “I don’t like you” type of discourse. The way Anissimov sometimes argues is reminiscent of how people on Stormfront do it and that is not a good sign. The whole entryism thing is also pretty senseless as well and Anissimov is pretty much the only one who is being so hysterical about it. I guess the man just likes his drama as he is also absolutely hostile to any type of actual debate, or any attempts at a consensus position (as is clear from the twitter dicussion).
Anissimov not only thinks we are in a conflict, he wants us to be in a conflict. And he wants neoreaction to be a community and to LARP in Idaho while trying to build the ideal Evolian society. Moldbug is all but forgotten as just another “cultureless shekel-worshiper”. Doesn’t this somewhat beg the question, considering Neoreaction’s origins and what it stands for, who is the actual entryist here?

I have some more thoughts on all of this but it has been a long night and it’s about time I get some sleep…

My thoughts exactly watching the weekly Twitter slap fights instigqted by him. Unnecessary conflict. It’s like he was desperately searching for an intellectual thing to then turn into his life project.

MA is not an entryist. He’s pretty straightforward. He’s a futurist reactionary who is still slightly confused by the term “neo-reaction” (it sounds like something futurist reactionaries should like, but it’s actually something they should really, really dislike) and by Moldbug’s reactionary-sounding rhetoric. Reactionaries blundering into “neo-reaction” isn’t entryism. It’s just people taking the bait.

You guys are the entryists. Liberals in reactionary’s clothing. Nobody’s really denying it. If you guys are the correct interpretation and extension of Moldbug’s ideas then Moldbug himself was an entryist; a liberal looking to get out ahead of the coming reaction against the excesses of liberalism / progressivism and channel it into a less reactionary and more liberal (and yes, shekel oriented) direction, a direction that is safer and more comfortable for people like Moldbug. Can’t blame him for trying.

Meanwhile, admin may or may not be an entryist into Moldbug’s little entryist movement. I don’t care to debate interpretations of Moldbug, but it’s not exactly clear to me that “accelerating the disintegration of everything” was really what he had in mind when he wrote all that stuff about monarchy and social order.

In case the initial point (fotrkd and me) is being misunderstood: MA is not being accused of entryism, it is his concern with entryism that is under discussion — although the scope of the topic has since expanded (melo)dramatically.

Yeah, sure, I am not a reactionary in the original sense of the term. The only extent to which I am a reactionary is the extent to which someone like Moldbug (and Hoppe) can be considered reactionary.
But what’s this obsession that traditionalist reactionaries (at least Anissimov) have with this “entryism” stuff? It’s completely senseless and even childish and it honestly looks completely pathetic. I don’t want a conflict, I don’t seek one, but Anissimov just wants to be extremely confrontational about this. And this results in a lot of ridiculous drama that is completely unnecessary.
Now, if you consider Moldbug unworthy of the title reactionary and have a particular dislike of his political philosophy and like Anissimov are not in any way interested in his ideas, well what the fuck are you doing here? Did you get lost on the road to Counter-Currents?
And “Moldbug is an entryist” doesn’t really explain anything either. “Entryist” into what? As far as I remember Moldbug was his own thing. Did he write all that he wrote because he wanted to join the Evola Book Club? No. If Moldbug is an entryist and a shekel-worshipper, or whatever, that begs the question what are you people doing here? It’s quite obvious that neoreaction is something pretty much initiated by and because of what Moldbug wrote. This is not the european new right, guys. We’ve been through this a million times. And despite the big differences that there are between all the various bloggers of ‘neoreaction’, an interest in neocameralism and Moldbug is at least something of a convergence point.
The ridiculousness of Mike Anissimov screaming “entryist” and pointing fingers at people is that those people are most of the time not even interested in what he means by “reactionary”.
NRx is not a precisely deliniated movement or a community, this is a bunch of bloggers talking about political philosophy and exchanging ideas. If you don’t like what is being talked about, you are free to not read what those people have to say. But it gets supremely annoying when you have this idea that what NRx should be is your own personal army for initiating an international neo-evolian revolutionary movement (comrade!!!) and then you want people to submit to that idea because you have the majority vote, or something. (What is this, a democracy?)
And um, where is Anissimov’s position dominant anyways? On MoreRight? (is this why that site doesn’t have a comment section?) On Twitter? Is his position the position of Admin here? Of Foseti? Of Jim? Of Handle? Of Spandrell? If not, then what the hell is he talking about? And even if it was, does this excuse the “majority” from being cool-headed about this and actually having a debate instead of engaging into a senseless monkey melodrama of a slapfight? I guess having an actual discussion with neocameralists is sooo March 2014, bro.

To prevent misunderstanding, I have no problem with monarchists or traditionalists of any kind. As long as things are kept civil there is a lot of interesting stuff to talk about and learn from them. But when those people try to turn neoreaction in their own personal LARPing project and refuse to even consider talking about Moldbug and demand that everyone submit to that simply because they are “in the majority”, I think things have taken a turn for the worst.
Anissimov doesn’t want a discussion, a debate. He seems to want a witchunt.

“muh, I abandoned it [neocameralism] nearly as soon as I found it. I care about Europeans, not some cultureless shekel-worship.”

“To prevent misunderstanding, I have no problem with monarchists or traditionalists of any kind. As long as things are kept civil there is a lot of interesting stuff to talk about and learn from them. But when those people try to turn neoreaction in their own personal LARPing project and refuse to even consider talking about Moldbug and demand that everyone submit to that simply because they are “in the majority”, I think things have taken a turn for the worst.”

Leadership can’t be asserted like that and have it work. When people want to follow you, they will beg to follow, without your asking it. If you have to ask without knowing the answer, the answer is probably going to be ‘no.’

““muh, I abandoned it [neocameralism] nearly as soon as I found it. I care about Europeans, not some cultureless shekel-worship.”

Europeans would be living in mud huts with thatched roofs like Africans without double entry book-keeping. Even the Romans practiced accounting. Accounting has been with us since the dawn of civilization, because running anything past a subsistence farm requires accounting. Capitalism is a term invented by Marx as a political weapon.

I’ve seen peasants who don’t use accounting before. They’re stunted little things who push around hand tools, walk barefoot around animals that shit on the ground, and develop lung infections because their people never invented the chimney.

I choose European tradition over that, because jet fighters, ICBMs, and tanks are excellent at killing millions of angry foreign peasants when the need appears.

When you’re trying to agitate useless teenagers and young men, it helps to disdain accounting and trade, because they’re not good for much besides agitating into a mass of Kony troopers. Pretending that the Romans or the Greeks (‘tradition’) did not have counting houses requires a special sort of literate illiteracy.

Double-entry book keeping predates Evola by a good 700 years, and its development permitted the a flourishing in European art and culture that has yet to be topped. Michelangelo has to get paid in coins. Marble miners do not work for free.

To be fair, worshipping the shekel to the exclusion of other things is a real and terrible disease. Moldbug doesn’t have it, he has a nuanced position using the shekel as proxy and additionally saying, ‘get at least the shekel right as a foundation for getting everything else right.’

Anissimov has more followers than nydwracu and Outsidness combined. More than I have by an order of magnitude. His rhetoric is clearly more popular.

–

I hope someone will accuse me of being anti-traditionalist point-blank at some point, because I have a retort all lined up. “My tradition is over 2500 years old.” But actually, I’m mentioning this because it’s not likely to come up and I want to stop remembering it; saying out loud is likely to succeed at this.

As for ‘larping’, don’t knock it. I’ve done HEMA and it is solid fighting of a very advanced kind. We need people forming basic alternative communities, so long as they don’t lose connection with the rest of us. You guys should –not– be responding in kind to Mike’s aggressiveness, you’re failing the shit test.

The ‘liberal’ critique applies to ancaps, because to some extent ancap is a possible next step from Classical Liberalism. But as a Christian Traditionalist I might be considered an ‘entryist’ because I don’t sufficiently value WHITENESS.

That this thread has seven fold more replies than the Lovecraft one is indicative of the terribleness of the blogosphere as it exists.

The Hypercapitalists will inevitably collapse into Libertarians and experience amnesia on all the nasty bigoted things they used to believe. Maybe they will write up essays on how ancient Indian property rights in America should be respected or something. They will inevitably be a sad appaendage of Priogressivism with some internet mastrubation. As they have been for 20 years.

The White Nationalists will collapse into Liberalism for white people, and forget the harsh realism they glimpsed for a while. They will think modern Sweden is good society with a secure future if only brown people didn’t rape so many of the native wimmenz. Talk about how sexism alienates white women. Another appaendage of Progressivism with some internet mastrubation. As they have been for 20 years.

The Orthospherians alone will remain, praying to God in a universe that if they are lucky is uncaring. If there is hope it lies with them. But fundamentally they will just follow their religion until they are no more. But Gnon smiles on those few that endure. Maybe some will.

Those who try to avoid these faiths and stick in the middle will devolve into mere conservatives. Notice the marginal blogs that I never approved of, like The Right Stuff suggestion people grow up and vote GOP.

The Cambrian explosion wasn’t flourishing of Neoreaction, a strength in diversity, it was its detonation an Expansion of a tiny universe now cooling and approaching heat death. As we named it we point at the photon stream of a supernova we only noticed because it flared up.

All involved parties are consistently deluded the other ones are to blame. The retardery of this spectacle would make me angry and it did a month ago, but really I was the deluded one, to think it could ever be otherwise. I can feel the very fabric of my ideological world-island thinning. I stand on ground that was once densely packed with matter, now nearest neighbors expanding in all directions are light years away.

Your war thoughts could be usefully applied to this. Only through the tensions finding expression do we find the robust interconnections. It really does take this stuff — however ugly you find it — to thrash through the structural vulnerabilities ourselves, before our enemies do.

Look at Mike’s Moldbug remarks — would it really be preferable to have them bottled up through some kind of diplomatic self-inhibition? It seems to me vastly preferable to get the bloody surgery underway as promptly and efficiently as possible. The more it’s worked over, the stronger it will be in the end.

If everyone retreated into insulated compartments, on the other hand, that would be genuinely damaging — perhaps even more than theoretical self-inhibition (but only possibly). That’s why the heuristic to be recommended is maximum exposure to corrosion, maximum engagement, minimal emotionality, and minimal ego. Harsh, relentless auto-vivisection. We should be tough enough to take it, surely?

I sympathize far more with Anissimov than with neocameralism for the simple reasons that (1) it is European culture and civilization and people that are in crisis (though to be fair, this is true of other cultures also), and (2) it is very hard to imagine the great societies we have seen in the west without them.

Neocamerism is achieved! It is the present reality!! (By my understanding neocameralism boils down to corporatist-style optimization as the first principle).

How can a neocameralist even be a neoreactionary when the neocameralism is by far at its zenith in world history? Commerce, globalization, ruthless mass production and ruthless efficiency, GDP at an all at-time high point in history. Hooray!

Not only that, if any policy is a serious threat to immediate GDP it gets the kibosh. Not just in America, but the world over. Nations almost everywhere now measure GDP and place growth uber alles.

Presumably people are reactionary because things aren’t going well. If you are a neocameralist, these are halcyon days. And even when the powers that be might pursue policies that are not near-term GDP optimizing, that is accidental. They can be sure to correct back toward GDP optimization as soon as any error becomes known.

People the world over are fatter and safer and richer than they have ever been, and popping anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills at a record pace, wallowing in a state of moral and cultural degradation, with no sense of belonging and no sense of home. The neocameralist shouts, MOAR!!

What do you mean by ‘neoreaction’? It’s clearly not based on a reading of Moldbug.

NRx is Neocameralism. The term only exists because Moldbug does. It’s perfectly OK that you’re not inclined in that direction — we’re not looking for popularity — but it’s just fogging up the language to oppose Moldbug’s thinking in the name of ‘neoreaction’ when in fact you’re some kind of reactionary of a very different type. The simple truth of the matter is that you don’t like NRx and want something else. That’s fine.

Fair enough. I should call myself a reactionary rather than a neoreactionary.

But then, how can neocameralism be any sort of reactionary when most of neocameralism (such near-term GDP optimization), seems to be at the functional center of US policy? Obama will not question the Federal Reserve, or any aspect of global trade, or any incursion of big business, at least not with any vigor. He quietly dithers on a single pipeline but fracking soars. It seems to me corporatist optimization rules.

If you are in such a dominant position, as neocameralism sort of is in effect if not in name, what is there to react against? How does any descriptor with the term ‘reactionary’ in it even make sense for this hyper-powerful viewpoint?

>But then, how can neocameralism be any sort of reactionary when most of neocameralism (such near-term GDP optimization), seems to be at the functional center of US policy?

NC is not near-term GDP-max, and it is not US Imperialism, it is not the ruling religion of the US, and is not corporatism, it’s not even necessarily capitalism.

NC is applying business social tech (competition, joint stock, CEO/hierarchy, etc) to the problem of government. The USG currently uses none of those: there are no competitors because the states have no rights, the thing is run as some kind of porkfest pseudocharity with aircraft carriers rather than a lean profitable corp, and the president has no particular power.

I would expect NC governments to limit capitalism, because unrestrained capitalism is destructive.

Hurlock Reply:April 24th, 2014 at 5:47 pm

A few things –
1- I don’t know what efficiency in the modern world you are talking about, we are probably living the age of the greatest waste ever of resources ever. (actually scratch the “probably”)
2- GDP is a bad and meaningless aggregate for measuring actual productive growth. This actually has been touched on before by Moldbug himself. As a properly Keynesian aggregate GDP gets almost everything wrong.
3- The federal reserve and the big business/government cartel is probably the greatest concern of people like me. What is happening is not corporatist optimization but political plundering. Crucially different.
4- This is why Anissimov and some other traditionalists should study some more economics. They think that when we talk about growth and economic optimization we are talking about the same thing that the USG is talking about. Obviously if that were true we wouldn’t even be here, no?

It increasingly seems to me that Goulding was smart to abandon ship when he did. With respect to those frankly too good for all of this (e.g., admin, Spandrell, Bonald, Deogolwulf), “neoreaction” appears now as distasteful and hysterical as any Twitter activist. Encountering the above mentioned, at least, I was engaged by the intellectual curiosity, unusual erudition, probing comments, occasionally aphoristic wit… I am now confronted with a posturing “manosphere” nonsense. When Moldbug recommended Fitzhugh or Pobedonostsev, for example, it was noteworthy because he was actively seeking grounds for an intellectual ‘counter-tradition’; when I now see the same names, unread and blindly copied, again on half a dozen “recommended reading” sections of blogs, it is only disheartening. I suppose no one at the time was willing to entertain the idea that a “Cambrian explosion” could only mean an explosion of unthinking mediocrity.

It brings to mind a quote of von Balthasar: “Works of art can die as a result of being looked at by too many dull eyes.”

One amusing Twitter spat and the whole thing is in tatters..! (Konkvistador is even on the verge of death…) So Vladimir and Goulding wandered off into the shadows of myth and legend, reputations assured – no problem. And maybe the Golden Age has past (isn’t that the reactionary’s default position?), but how does ceasing to contribute further anything? We tried, but we simply weren’t intelligent/powerful/popular enough, and then the hordes overtook us… so we submitted to the Cathedral.

I’d like to comment on the Twitter thing, but most of my thoughts have been covered/it speaks for itself. One question: how does the Idaho project (if it isn’t some sort of in joke) address the ratchet? And one bridge: If antipathy toward the Cathedral is the common ground and the means, then surely links with others taking a similar stance are worth pursuing – even if you individually have no interest in engaging with them (i.e. in patchwork fashion)? Going back to the idea of the trichotomy, I believe admin said something about killing each other if we actually had to live with each other. Is it any different here? (Nobody is asking anyone else to live with Justine Tunney.)

I am not referring to the “Twitter spat,” but rather to the general ambiance that has taken hold over the last few months. For example, this: http://neorxn.com/

How many of those posted today are worth reading? This week? I am not saying everyone should “cease to contribute.” I am saying that nearly everyone should, and that the rest of us should recognize that we have very little to contribute, and allow those of wit, intelligence, and genuine erudition to write about things that interest them, without creating an obnoxious background clatter of posture and backslapping. Maybe I was misled, but I was not initially under the impression that “neoreaction” was about proselytizing to create a “popular” movement to overtake the Cathedral. In fact, that seemed quite contrary to what appeared to me a Cioran-esque realist, fatalist quietism. I find this appealing, and the alternative (a movement!) patently distasteful. Again, though, I will admit that perhaps my interest was too wholly literary, and I misunderstood the intentions of those involved.

Retreat, become less accessible, and use bigger words. Split: exoteric and esoteric. This is what rationalism does: one movement to siphon off the idiots (atheism, skepticism, RationalWiki), another exoteric movement that snows prospective members with jargon and has >130 average IQ as a result (Less Wrong) and can serve as an aggregator of people to spawn smaller esoteric movements / secret clubs / whatever you want to call them, and then selection for quality off the top of LW upward.

“Among Israel’s colonial strategies is ‘pinkwashing’, in which the state of Israel uses gay rights (everything from Prides to advertisements for asylum to gay tourism campaigns) as a distraction from its occupation.”

Well I’m glad they noticed gay squirrel distractors too, I was rather noticing the reverse during the Olympics.

“1- I don’t know what efficiency in the modern world you are talking about, we are probably living the age of the greatest waste ever of resources ever. (actually scratch the “probably”)
2- GDP is a bad and meaningless aggregate for measuring actual productive growth. This actually has been touched on before by Moldbug himself. As a properly Keynesian aggregate GDP gets almost everything wrong.”

There has always been waste. But life expectancy all over the world is higher than it has ever been and that is as pure and reductionist a measure as you will find for prosperous external conditions, because it captures nutrition, safety, stability and medicine. Or alternatively you can look at energy consumption, which is back to all-time highs in the West. And yet people are all on uppers and seeing shrinks.

“3- The federal reserve and the big business/government cartel is probably the greatest concern of people like me. What is happening is not corporatist optimization but political plundering. Crucially different.”

Federal employment is at a 47 year low, meaning as a proportion of the population it is much lower still. One could have made a great case for political plundering by defense contractors during the cold war which is proportionally less now. Almost none of what we consume is from government-owned entities. Most Federal government spending (65% or more) is social welfare-related, which goes to the public. Almost all state spending is things like roads and schools. No problem there…

If you want to talk about political corruption, graft and such, surely it was far higher in old New York or old Chicago or the old South.

“4- This is why Anissimov and some other traditionalists should study some more economics. They think that when we talk about growth and economic optimization we are talking about the same thing that the USG is talking about. Obviously if that were true we wouldn’t even be here, no?”

If someone from any time in history were dropped into 2014 America, he would notice 2 things. First, he would be walloped by an intense sense of incredible consumption by the average person — the entertainment, the bountiful food, the easy life. Later as he observes more, he would notice that people seem unhappy, fat, degraded, immoral or amoral, childishly dependent, isolated and lonely.

Our time traveler would never in a million years consider economics is the root problem, unless it is to think the problem is loss of humanity due to overabundance.

“Federal employment is at a 47 year low, meaning as a proportion of the population it is much lower still. One could have made a great case for political plundering by defense contractors during the cold war which is proportionally less now. Almost none of what we consume is from government-owned entities. Most Federal government spending (65% or more) is social welfare-related, which goes to the public. Almost all state spending is things like roads and schools. No problem there…”

(Direct) Federal imployment is a spurious way to measure this – as you implicitly recognize on the one hand you’re going to include “political plundering by defense contractors”

We’ve been trained (by the progressives) to notice only that part of “Iron Triangles,” but there is a lot of corrupt conveyer-belts. From billions of dollars per month to the primary banks (in the name of economic salvation of us all – but, then, the corrupt never say they’re doing it for corrupt reasons) to wholesale-level vote-bank generation that is “social welfare-related.” Or just look at “scholarship.” Or at the transformation of mutual aid/civic organizations into “NGOs” who are tied to the state by an umbilical cord and mostly exist as part of the self-licking ice cream cone (recieving grants from the state so they can “advocate public policy programs).

“If you want to talk about political corruption, graft and such, surely it was far higher in old New York or old Chicago or the old South.”

There was certainly more retail-level political corruption in old New York, old Chicago, or the old South. Progressives moved against those local retail-level machines and replaced retail-level political corruption, and repurposed the machines. Note the machines didn’t disapear (though they did, over time, evolve).

What happened could be seen as part of industrialization: production of corrupt political interaction moved from local craftsman to large centralized industrial scale/wholesale vote-buying: “social welfare spending” that doesn’t do what it ostensibly was created to do but does insure that whoever gets voted to hold office, the public supports their permanent government, the Modern Structure. (This was much more naked during the initial period. Things are somewhat more cleverly done, but still. In any case you should check out books and articles on the political economy of the new deal and how relief programs were targeted on the basis of need, yes – but on the basis of political need for election cycles rather than at those most ‘in need’, and how people were pressured to register as and vote for Democrats or lose their CCC/public works $ and how the National Recovery Administration was used to benefit insider companies – ones that played ball with the government – at the expense of those; Clarence Darrow, who investigated it on behalf of the Senate, had a few pithy words to say about how that corrupt machine operated).

If you want to see the effect of this wholesale corruption, look at “the public” through the eyes of your time traveller. Wholesale corruption – which we have all been trained (again, by whom?) to not see this wholesale-level corruption as corruption. A sign of its pervasiveness and effectiveness, not of its non-existence.

Economical and social order are very closely related. In fact, there is a strong argument for the case that they are one and the same.

Let me explain in very simple terms how economics is very closely tied with all those social problems that you observe.
From your comments I take it you dislike consumption and dependency culture. Well what do you think is causing those? Here’s the likely answer: very high time preference. This is economics speak for “people prefer to consume immediately rather than save and invest and consume later”. OK, this is immediately obvious – presently people mostly take loans to buy stuff and live on credit instead of saving. But what is causing this high time preference? Well let’s look at the overall state in which the economy is. When we look at the latter half of the 20th century up to nowadays, we see a pattern of repeating boom and bust cycles within the economy and a consistent policy of strong credit expansion (which in fact is the primary reason for the boom-bust cycles). The credit expansion also causes serious inflation which actively discourages saving (when your savings are persistently losing value because of constant credit expansion, saving doesn’t seem like such a good idea). So here we have the answer as to why people have very high time preferences: 1. uncertain future because of the constant boom and bust cycles, the economy basically becomes a roller coaster and foresight is near impossible when some dumb bureaucrat is constantly tinkering with everything. 2. With persistent inflation saving is discouraged (just for illustration in the past 100 years the dollar has lost 95% of its value) 3. The expansion of credit also leads to lower interest rates, which is another very strong reason not to save. I could go on, but the point I am making is that this very high time preference is primarily (if not entirely) caused by bad monetary policy.
Now, combine all of that with easily accessible social security by the state (especially in western countries).
“Most Federal government spending (65% or more) is social welfare-related”. You don’t think that is a massive waste? Those are 65% of the taxes government takes from people who work to give (primarily) to people who don’t work, but vote Democrat. That’s waste if I’ve ever seen one. Yes, federal employment may be at a 47-year low (which is not saying much really; until you get back to pre- New Deal levels it’s bad, very bad) but federal dependency? I’d say it’s at an all-time high.
And there you have it. Most of those social problems all explained by economics. (this of course is the very very short and comprehensive version) (yes some problems are not directly explained by economics, but a lot of them are indirectly related)

A little digression here:
On the topic of easy life, I am actually not convinced we are having it that easy. College education cost is through the roof and the way it’s going if you want to get a degree, your children will be stuck paying your loans. Saving for a house is impossible nowadays, so forget about that (can you even save for a car?). Everyone knows what the boom-bust cycles do to a lot of the population, (we all remember how devastating was the housing bubble) even those who don’t enter the bubbles suffer the consequences and may lose their jobs and savings.
So, whether life in the beginning of the 21st century is easier than life in the beginning of the 20th century is actually quite debatable. Yes, we have advanced in a lot of ways since then (technologically), but our economic situation is in fact very much worse.

Economics is the science of purposeful human action. As such it has great explanatory power for the social phenomena that we observe. It may not be able to account for absolutely everything (no science can do that by itself), but that is no reason to neglect it.

People who think evolution means visible, purposeful change are anti-Darwinists. You don’t want to stand against Chucky D.

It’s fun to say “Cambrian explosion”, but what that actually means is “accelerated speciation event”. Splintering, entryism, infighting, etc. are good. This whole thing is about as mature as 1930s American Trotskyism. It needs to evolve; evolution usually means that you don’t know what gets to the other side, let alone if you get to the other side.

The political fringe is smooth, not striated space. The only strategy is to flush it with turbulence. Stop playing alliances. Stop sucking up to people. Jesus.

Let Mike have the Neo prefix, he has fatally contaminated it by his pursuit of populism and his abandonment of the very insights that made MM so valuable. Neoreaction has become embarrassing just as JG and V predicted. The alternative, something obstinately esoteric, literary, portentous, strange… Xenoreaction, maybe.

The molten sparks you were hoping for, Nick, haven’t happened – everyone appears to be disenchanted because, labels. It has to be a mind-rush while esoteric. It IS’ Xenoreaction’ – forget the nationalists, and any potential of overturning of the Cathedral. Let’s enjoy the aesthetic victories, that’s as much as we can claim.

“But if Glenn Reynolds is right, the American political system is helpless in the grip of these pilots with the fake readouts, like being in a nightmare where it is impossible to flee from the approaching danger. Whatever befall, nobody can impeach Obama nor it seems, can anyone persuade him to resign. The world — or the US at least — is condemned to be to chained to the spot while whatever horror is out there lurking in the deeps wades monstrously out of the water. Only when we see it come into the light will we know what we’re facing and not before.”

For me Its not so much a question of whether it’s sincere or feigned – it’s requisite.

Clarkson’s position is as impossible as it is ridiculous. To keep his job at the BBC he has to offer a groveling apology, but mustn’t be seen to admit to actually – or at least volitionally – doing the thing he is apologising for. The whole thing becomes an absurd performance of fealty to the orthodoxy, even as advances further and further into the realm of the absurd.

fotrkd Reply:May 7th, 2014 at 11:52 pm

As with Ferguson, it’s the grovelling that’s most pitiful. Some sanity? (though Delingpole’s shift to Breitbart is indicative in itself).

I was hoping to work this up into something (some residue below), but I haven’t the energy or, possibly, the material. It would be stale by the time I eventually did, so… here (some Reaction Points for you):

Something odd just happened. Witnessed by about 150 million people. Normally messages from the great beyond arrive relatively privately and heavily coded. Not this time. Last night had all the subtlety of an American airstrike (which may hint at a common origin if Russian ‘intelligence’ is to be believed:

‘Outspoken ultranationalist MP Zhirinovsky called this year’s [Eurovision] result “the end of Europe,” saying: “There is no limit to our outrage. It has turned wild. There are no more men or women in Europe, just it.“’

Elsewhere, an undercover Russian ‘comedian’ revealed, “[t]here is information that Conchita is a CIA project that is designed to destroy the moral and spiritual values in Russia”, while vice-premier Dmitry Rogozin added this “showed supporters of European integration their European future – a bearded girl”.)

Anyway, to recap: A hirsute infiltrator scarcely concealed as a woman, and compared in appearance “to Jesus, X Factor runner-up Rylan and Tulisa Contostavlos”, was last night crowned by popular assent, and with full ceremonial pomp and attire, Queen of Europe. In her first address after the coronation, Queen Conchita (diminutive of Concepción) – channelling Gnon-knows-what – spoke to her subjects:

“This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are — we are unity and we are unstoppable.” [You really need to watch it to experience the full, chilling vocal terror (of absolute conviction).]

Eurovision has spoken: I am the Alpha and the Omega.

One mother tweeted: “I am so glad that my kids live in an era where it is Conchita and not Hitler that represents Austria in Europe.” (Give it time).

Oh, I see. Project Idaho is a caravan park. (If Twitter migration was the NRx death knell, Idaho is the horror movie ending…). You know I tried to run away from home twice. First time I got stuck to the garden chain-link fence (my mum took a photo before retrieving me), second the front door kept rebounding shut off the suitcase I was standing on to reach the handle. Bless.

So does the NRx wing that rejects Tunney engagement not understand hypocrisy? ‘We shouldn’t engage because… tranny!’ = ‘We shouldn’t engage because… waacist!’ (or however you’re meant to spell it). And the (neo)reactionary runs away complaining about a lack of objectivity/facts and the stupidity of ad hominems etc.Consensus is degenerative; Mike is down to 29 following… he’s doing good then, yes?! The saint in the cave upon the islet…

Mike is the just about the worst thing to happen to NRx. With his weird high-pitched voice (getting the ad hominem in there, Mike) he’s like a Reactionary Timothy Treadwell, setting off on his greatest folly. And we all know how that ends…

“It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the most misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age in Europe and North America and the epoch in which the Roman Empire declined into the Dark Ages. None the less certain parallels there are. A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead — often not recognising fully what they were doing — was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. … What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.”